English

A simple and more general approach to Stokes' theorem

History and Overview 2019-01-29 v1

Abstract

Oftentimes, Stokes' theorem is derived by using, more or less explicitly, the invariance of the curl of the vector field with respect to translations and rotations. However, this invariance -- which is oftentimes described as the curl being a "physical" vector -- does not seem quite easy to verify, especially for undergraduate students. An even bigger problem with Stokes' theorem is to rigorously define such notions as ``the boundary curve remains to the left of the surface''. Here an apparently simpler and more general approach is suggested.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1901.09295,
  title  = {A simple and more general approach to Stokes' theorem},
  author = {Iosif Pinelis},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1901.09295},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

7 pages; to appear in Mathematics Magazine

R2 v1 2026-06-23T07:23:09.972Z